The One About Tools
You just need to master a few of them
TL;DR
Maybe earning a great living isn’t as complicated as we tend to make it.
What if increasing our earning power is as simple as becoming a master of just a few main tools we use to earn a living?
Take carpentry for example. One of the tools used in that business is a table saw.
One carpenter just uses the table saw to make wobbly 90° cuts tracing a pencil line and can maybe build an outdoor pergola that is just a step or two above what a DIYer could do.
But another carpenter knows how to set a fence and adjust the cutting angle on the same table saw and can build beautiful custom shelving in wealthy people’s homes.
Can they both call themselves a carpenter? Sure.
But one of them can charge a lot more because the supply of expert carpenters in the world is low.
So I am a bookkeeper, not a carpenter (though I actually can adjust the angle of a saw, and build a chicken coop with my husband, and not get a divorce in the process, so you can be mildly impressed).
I thought about the physical items and software that my hands touch and my eyes see the most each day.
Here is the list of the top 5 tools I currently use to make a living as a bookkeeper:
A keyboard
A mouse
Freshbooks
Zoom
Google workspace applications
Do I use more than these things? Of course. The list is long. Perhaps too long. But these are what I use the most.
Your list might be different. (Actually, no one else earns their living niched in FreshBooks, so I KNOW your list is different! 🤣)
If you use Xero, could you teach someone to use it while you are blindfolded with just your voice? I can do that with FreshBooks. I’ve gotten so dang good.
I do know that you use a mouse and keyboard. Do you know all that it can do with the right-click? Do you know what happens when you click the scrolling button? Do you have at least 10 native keyboard shortcuts memorized plus 10 for your specific main apps plus 10 custom shortcuts you’ve built for commonly used text snippets?
And since my eyeballs see Google Workspace and Zoom so much, I’m trying to become an all-star in those apps. Seriously. Being a basic user of those tools is not an option for me. Because they are currently amongst the top things that my eyeballs see. I need to know every nook and cranny inside of them.
I honestly think that becoming a power user requires less effort than you might think. Most people in the world are not doing the work to become experts in anything.
I challenge you to take just 3 days this week and pay attention to what your hands are doing and what your eyes are seeing. Write down list of the Top 5 Tools you use.
Ask yourself “How would an expert do this task or use this tool” and then do the hard work to figure out and practice how to use the tool better. It will feel so good. And then do it again until your list of Top 5 Tools changes.
Thanks a ton to our sponsor Pachira Business Solutions. This team of bookkeeping experts is available to be a part of your team when you need an extra set of hands to manage all the client work. It is really hard to set aside the time it takes to develop expertise in tools when you are drowning in client work. Pachira Business Solutions can provide that margin that you need to take your own entrepreneurial skills to the next level.
Deals Deals Deals
💰 Earn entries into weekly drawings for prizes when you get your QBO ProAdvisor Recertification. Just log when you complete you test at this website*. Weekly prizes are $500 Visa gift card + $250 coupon to any Akadian Accountng Education course.
Please always send me any news of deals that you hear of that others might benefit from.
Be There or Be Square
Items with a “+” are hosted by me. All these events can be viewed and registered for in the DESCRIPTIONS of each event on the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Calendar.
📅+ June 11 - Keeper Demo: 2025 Edition. This is the 2nd part of the 2-part series with Keeper - and will be a demo of the app. This is perfect for anyone who has considered Keeper or just wants to learn more.
📅 June 17 - QBOA for ProAvisors*. This Royalwise course will teach you the difference between QBOA for Accountants and the client's QBO and a long list of other accountant-only tools. Sign up HERE*.
📅 June 22 - If you will be attending Scaling New Heights, come see my presenation at 1:10. I’m teaching all about how and why I have built an “office hours” group membership service inside my firm. Be sure to say hello!
📅+ June 26 - Behind The Hustle. Tune in for the first interview of this new BSH series where successful bookkeepers share how they started their hustle. Subscribe to the BSH YouTube channel so you don’t miss it! More interviews coming this summer!
📅 Jun 30 - QBO ProAdvisor Recertification Deadline. Don’t let it sneak up on you (cough, cough…talking to myself). Akadian Accounting Education has a companion course just for the recert* if the materials from Intuit aren’t enough to pass the tests.
📅 July 1 - Bookkeeper's Networking Party* in Seattle. 10:00am - 2:00pm. This party is pretty meta because it is a networking party where you get to practice networking skills that you will use to get clients.
📅+July 9 - State of the Virtual Bookkeeping & Accounting Industry: 2025 Survey Results. Serena Shoup, The Ambitious Bookkeeper, and I will discuss the results of her survey.
Featured Posts
🌶️ Who here thinks real life case study interviews from real life bookkeepers would be valuable? No AI schlock. No spin from a marketer. Just real life entrepreneurs in this bookkeeping/accounting/tax field talking about how they built their businesses. Well, that is what the “Behind The Hustle” interviews are going to be. I need you to help pick the thumbnail graphic! - Go vote on your favorite! And then go check out this post with the interview questions and let me know what else you would want to ask! The first episode will air on the YouTube Channel on June 26. The guest is Lynsi Ingram.
🌶️ Cheyenne S. asked who you turn to when you need help. This thread was so encouraging, check it out and add what you do when you need advice.
Help You Hustle
💪 So if you use Keeper or if you are Keeper-curious, you will want to catch the replay of “Keeper Features That Power Users Swear By”.
Again with the tools analogy. Whatever practice management and month-end close tool that you use, it is likely one of your top 5 tools. You better freaking become a power user of that tool if you are serious about earning a great living.
And if you do use Keeper, you simply must join the Monthly Keeper Q&As hosted by Hughes and Strong Consulting.
💪 Throughout human history, how have humans developed mastery of their tools? They were taught by people smarter than them. Think about the art guilds of the Renaissance. Think Plato teaching Aristotle. Think Obi-Wan Kenobi teaching Luke Skywalker.
If QBO is one of your top most-used tools that your hands touch and your eyes see, you should probably take a CLASS on it. And be taught by a true master of that tool. That is what is coming to you from Alicia Katz Pollock in July. She is doing another cohort of her QuickBooks Online Complete Hands-On Training program. Think of it like a hands-on step-by-step college-style guided course.
If you are reading this newsletter but QBO is NOT one of your top 5 tools that you use to earn a living, don’t take this course.
💪 Thanks to the 639 folks who took the time to complete the State of the Virtual Bookkeeping and Accounting Industry survey. It is not my initiative, but I am extremely interested in the results and think most readers of this newsletter should be, too.
They've shared a quick sneak peek of some of the data:
56% of responses were SOLO Firm owners
40% of responders charge between $300-$500 per month
12% of responders are still charging hourly!
If you want all the results of this survey, go here*.
For Fun
😹 So last edition I told you about The Unaccountable Podcast and how it hit a milestone of 50 episodes. And within one day of hitting send on that newsletter, I saw announcements from two other podcasts that blew those guys out of the water (Still love y'all, Tyler and Jeremy, if y'all are reading).
Congrats to Serena Shoup from The Ambitious Bookkeeper podcast* for hitting 200 episodes. Absolutely mind-blowing. And she curates playlists for you to listen to the exact episodes that you need. Red carpet, y’all.
Congrats to Donna Reade and Debbie Kilsheimer for hitting 100 episodes of The Bookkeepers on Fire podcast. Their show contains some interview episodes and some very technical skill episodes.
Jobs
💼 Check out the Job Guide - a few jobs were added this week!
My Family Circus (43F, 40M, 13M, 11F, 10M)
🎪 Giving money vs Making money
I was recently very convicted about some of the lessons that I'm teaching my children about money. I shared the details and a photo on this LinkedIn post with a picture of a “thermometer” that has been taped up on my kitchen pantry door since November. We gave my oldest son the responsibility of earning half of his fee for a summer camp he wanted to attend, and the thermometer was how he tracked it.
I am convicted because I am certain that if anyone interviewed my children and asked them questions about what their mother has taught them about money, they would all have a lot to say about earning an income, and running a business, and saving, and wealth building. We talk very openly about personal finance in our home.
But my guess is that none of my children would have much to say about my thoughts about giving away money.
And that is the most important lesson that I can teach them.
And I actually have LOTS of thoughts about giving away money. I could deliver a formal presentation on this matter with no preparation. My husband and I have thought long and hard about it and truly do have overarching principles that we actually follow. I’m talking formal principles and systems for ourselves that we’ve codified over our almost 17 years of marriage. We don’t take this lightly.
But my children don’t see that. I had a chance to teach my son as he was working to fill in this thermometer. But I missed it. I emphasised the income part. Not the generosity part.
Thanks to God for another day with breath in my lungs to try this mom thing one more day.
Kate Builds In Public
🎢 Latest big project in my firm: I shipped a monthly newsletter for my firm. It ties in as part of a larger marketing strategy. My Operations Coordinator and I have been creating content for social media, and y'all know I have a strong distaste for anything being used only one time. The newsletter is a way to repurpose some of it.
I can't show you the final product, but I can show you the template that has the sections. You will see that there are similarities in structure to this newsletter for accounting pros (again, I want to always be reusing and not reinventing wheels).
But also, just so you know, pushing this product all the way across the finish line felt like such an enormous effort. Lots of big conceptual thinking (what do I want to name it, what sorts of things do I want to say, etc).
But it also felt like death by a thousand cuts. There were so many little tasks that all mattered. Several graphics had to be created for the new account and the actual newsletter. What profile picture and is it the right dimensions? What is the tagline for the account? What fonts and colors do I want to set? Just an absolute slog, y'all.
BUT!!! I hit publish!
The foundation is laid. Each newsletter after that will require 90% less work than what it took to do this first one.
🎢 Mama ain't got no PTO: I've tried to share a lot of info about my firm revenue over the years I've been writing this newsletter (If you're not subscribed and reading every edition, why not!?!).
Faithful readers will know that I earn a large percentage of my revenue for my firm via my hourly training service where I train FreshBooks users one-on-one via Zoom.
And y'all, I am struggling mentally with the huge revenue drop I foresee in June. I have the last two weeks of June completely blocked off from client meetings at the end of the month for Scaling New Heights and then a family road trip.
Normally, I feel pretty good about my hourly rate. To me, $150 per hour feels richy rich. That is, until I face two whole weeks of no hourly training time.
Things are not completely desperate (to be very clear, nothing about my personal financial situation is desperate and it is important that readers know that because personal financial situations strongly affect choices that entrepreneurs make, and since you're reading this, I assume you want to learn from my journey and so I need to give a holistic picture).
I have a few monthly MRR clients (I keep 40% and my contractors get 60%). And I have my FreshBooks Office Hours members (also MRR).
But I am asking myself “what tools do I have at my disposal to make up for the drop in the revenue from “butt-in-seat” time”? Fling some Relay and Gusto links out into the internet ether? More FreshBooks Office Hours memberships? Try to drum up some clean ups I can pass to a contractor?
All viable options, but I can tell I’m feeling more panicky rather than strategic about the situation, which is never the best place to make decisions from.
For any hourly revenue earners, how do you handle this conundrum when you want to take time off?
🎢 Conference clothing tip: This next tip is for the ladies. I try unbelievably hard to have this community and newsletter be co-ed (which is actually harder than you think for a something with the word “bookkeeping” in the title), so guys, don't unsubscribe, but you can skip this part.
I treated myself to a couple of new blouses at Ann Taylor Loft. That is my go-to spot when I head to accounting conferences. Comfortable and cute, but still professional. If you will be at Scaling New Heights, you will get to see them!
And if your fashion style is more “sarcastic accounting t-shirt”, then you should check out tb4a.
Note, that is a referral link. If you treat yourself to a t-shirt or coffee mug right now, I would be very grateful. I really want them to be an advertiser for this newsletter and it might help my case if I can show that I send them traffic. 😁 Use code HUSTLE for 10% off.
From The Vault
⚡Yes, Intuit raised their prices again. Yes, it happens every summer. Yes, I have some opinions on this matter.
I wrote all that I wanted to say about it exactly one year ago when they did it last year.
Was I clear?
Classifieds (Clickable)
Keep hustling!
Kate
-Chief Hustler-
Get your copy of The Bookkeeping Side Hustle Guidebook: Actionable Steps To Becoming A Virtual Bookkeeping Without The Overwhelm
Easy and FREE ways to support Bookkeeping Side Hustle
Follow @BookkeepingSide on Twitter
I am down right rabid about transparency and full disclosure. If a link, including Amazon Links, has a * beside it, it means it is either an affiliate link where I might receive compensation if you make a purchase, at no additional charge to you. Or it could be a tracking link that another business provided me to see how many readers click on that link.
Thanks for the inspiration, Kate! I know I'm not using any of my tools to their fullest capabilities (maybe not even 50%), and I get frustrated with myself when I see how others are using the same tools. I'm going to accept your challenge and I'm going to start today! 🤩❤️